Philippe Couplet
Encyclopedia
Jesuit China missions
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of...
in the 17th century. He was born in Mechelen
Mechelen
Mechelen Footnote: Mechelen became known in English as 'Mechlin' from which the adjective 'Mechlinian' is derived...
, Spanish Netherlands
Southern Netherlands
Southern Netherlands were a part of the Low Countries controlled by Spain , Austria and annexed by France...
(now Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
).
Chinese career (1656–1681)
Philippe Couplet entered the Jesuit Order in 1640. His interest in China was aroused by a lecture by Martino MartiniMartino Martini
Martino Martini was an Italian Jesuit missionary, cartographer and historian, mainly working on ancient Imperial China.-Early years:Martini was born in Trento, in the Bishopric of Trent...
, a former Jesuit missionary to China. Couplet initially left for China in 1656, in a group of new Jesuit recruits led by Michał Boym, who was returning to China with the Pope's response to the Southern Ming's Yongli Emperor plea for help.
Couplet took various responsibilities throughout China, but had to take refuge in Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
during the 1665-1670 persecutions.
Couplet worked closely with Candida Xu (1607–1680), a granddaughter of Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi
Xu Guangqi , was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, including part of...
and a devout Christian herself. Under her patronage, he was able to set a number of new churches throughout Jiangnan
Jiangnan
Jiangnan or Jiang Nan is a geographic area in China referring to lands immediately to the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the southern part of the Yangtze Delta...
.
Mission to Europe (1681–1693)
Couplet was sent back to Europe in 1681 as Procurator of the China Jesuits in Rome. His mission was to obtain papal agreement for the liturgy to be sung in Chinese. On his visit to RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
he gave the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
a library of Chinese translations of Christian books. While in Europe, his visit to king Louis XIV triggered plans for the dispatch of five Jesuit "mathematicians" to the Chinese Court.
Michael Shen Fu-Tsung
Michael Alphonsius Shen Fu-Tsung, also Michel Sin, Michel Chin-fo-tsoung, Shen Fo-tsung, Shen Fuzong , was a Qing Chinese mandarin from Nanjing and a convert to Catholicism who was brought to Europe by the Flemish Jesuit priest Philippe Couplet, Procurator of the China Jesuit Missions in Rome...
(Miguel Shen Fuzong), one of the first Chinese men known to visit Europe, who visited Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Soon after, Couplet and Shen answered questions about the nature of the Chinese language
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
posed by linguists in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
.
Publications
In 1686 Couplet published in Paris Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae, a "chronological table of the Chinese monarchy", in an attempt to show that there was agreement between the Septuagint and the Chinese chronological records. To prove his point he had to add 1400 years to the time period that existed between Creation and the birth of Abraham. This however did not satisfy the European intelligentsia or the missionaries in China. His work nevertheless had a major impact in other areas of European science. Leibniz, for example, was able to establish, after communicating with the Jesuits, that the binary systemBinary system
Binary system may refer to:* Binary numeral system, the base-2 internal "machine language" of computers* Binary opposition, a bipolar distinction in philosophy, structuralism and critical theory...
he had invented also existed in the Yijing.
In 1687, leading a group of Jesuits (Prospero Intorcetta
Prospero Intorcetta
Prospero Intorcetta was a Jesuit who was active in China in the 17th century. He reached China in 1659, together with the French Jesuit Philippe Couplet, and worked in the Jiangnan region.-Works:...
, Christian Wolfgang Herdtrich
Christian Wolfgang Herdtrich
Christian Wolfgang Herdtrich was an Austrian Jesuit missionary in China.-Life:He entered the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus on 27 October 1641, and in 1656 was chosen for the Chinese mission. For two years he laboured on the island of Celebes, and after 1660 was in the Chinese provinces...
, and François de Rougemont), Couplet published Confucius Sinarum Philosophus ("Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
, Philosopher of the Chinese"), an annotated translation of three out of the Four Books from which the study of the Confucian canon traditionally started. The work (parts of which had appeared earlier in separate, little known, editions) was a culmination of the efforts of several generations of Jesuit missionaries, and was dedicated to King Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
.
The preface to the translation highly praised the works of Confucius:
Prior to returning to China he stayed in Europe until a dispute between the vicars apostolic of the Asian missions
Paris Foreign Missions Society
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....
, to which he had taken an oath of obedience, and the Portuguese padroado system
Padroado
The Padroado , was an arrangement between the Holy See and the kingdom of Portugal, affirmed by a series of treaties, by which the Vatican delegated to the kings of Spain and Portugal the administration of the local Churches...
, his initial tutelary organization, was resolved. After negotiations that lasted for eight years, the two sides were able to reach an agreement and Couplet finally departed for China.
As Couplet was travelling back to China, a heavy chest fell on his head during a storm in the Arabian Sea
Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui in northeastern Somalia and Kanyakumari in India...
, severely injuring the septuagenarian Jesuit. He died the next day, 16 May 1693, as his ship was about to reach Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
.
Works
- Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, sive scientia sinensis latine exposita ... (1687), Paris, by Philippe Couplet and Prospero IntorcettaProspero IntorcettaProspero Intorcetta was a Jesuit who was active in China in the 17th century. He reached China in 1659, together with the French Jesuit Philippe Couplet, and worked in the Jiangnan region.-Works:...
- Tabula Chronologica Monarchiae Sinicae (1686)
- Breve raguaglio delle cose piu notabili spettanti al grand'imperio della Cina (1687)
- Histoire d'une dame chrétienne de la Chine, Candide Hiu (1688) (Biography of Candida Xu)
Homonymous
A descendant of this man is also called Philippe Couplet (born in 1977). Like his forefather, he has become famous as a researcher in the Pasteur InstitutePasteur Institute
The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...
in Brussels. He is now working in a more commercial function in Sillon Belge